The God Business has Always Fascinated Me – Because the Purveyors of All that is Holy – and Who Claim to have Special Connections and Privileges – “Don’t Like Competition”.

The “Faithful” as Evidenced by this Person’s Blog I Stumbled Onto from a Google Search – Also Have No Shortage of Opinion on this Subject.

I’ve Been Driving By the “Free Chapel” in Irvine on Jamboree road for Years Now and have been – well – Curious About All of this.

If They Ever Go Out of Business – I Will Try and Lease the Building – put a Replica Flying Saucer on Top of the Roof – and Name it – “The First Church of the Returning Extraterrestrial” – Blue LED Lighting and All.

Remember as I Always Like to Say – “Bank Robbers Don’t Call the Police on Other Bank Robbers “.

Amen! –

Jentezen Franklin, and his false teachings on fasting.

There are many churches today participating in the current fad known as The Daniel Fast. This is a man-made so-called spiritual activity that is supposed to automatically draw you closer to God by eating things that are on a list and not eating things that are not on a list.

If you partake of this fast, other benefits mentioned on The Daniel Fast website are winning the battle over the flesh (hard to do when we are still flesh when the fast is done), losing weight and healings from diabetes, allergies, arthritis and cancer. Another benefit is said to be putting our spirit in charge of the other two parts of us, the soul and the body. It must be news to the Holy Spirit that we can put Him in charge of things. (source). Here is what others have experienced by fasting along with Jentezen Franklin: healed relationships, spiritual growth, physical healings, financial breakthroughs, and other blessings. Wow.

“If that is the case, you have to wonder what blessings aren’t being released, Franklin writes, what answers to prayer are not getting through…what bondages are not being broken…because we fail to fast.” The Word-Faith crowd always makes a point to say that we will lose out on something if we don’t do it their way. This is an example. Fasting is a voluntary activity we engage in at the prompting of the Spirit or when we feel we need to humble ourselves in grief or repentance, or to focus on Jesus in a more pointed way. More on fasting in previous post.

Jentezen Franklin is the guru of fasting. He has written two books on it and is the one who championed The Daniel Fast. His statements about why we fast include fasting to get a blessing, to earn God’s favor, to get a public reward, to get our greatest breakthrough, to “release” a hundredfold return. (source).

So the lesson from The Daniel Fast and Jentezen Franklin is that we fast to get something. I do not believe we fast to get something, and I do not believe we should expect something and I do not believe we have the power to cause God to do something if we fast. More on what fasting is all about in the previous post.

Secondly, if we fast, Franklin says, it causes God to “release” these things into our lives. My understanding is that fasting is a private expression of a deeply felt spiritual need and a way to humble myself before Almighty God.

All this elevates fasting to an importance the bible does not give it nor did Jesus give it. So who is this Jentezen Franklin?

Franklin is pastor of a Holiness church in GA but he is also pastor of a Holiness church in CA. How does he do it? This article from Charisma Magazine explains:

“Every Sunday, Franklin arrives at Free Chapel in Gainesville (GA) by 5 a.m. for prayer, preaches two sermons and shakes hundreds of hands before boarding a private jet at 2 p.m. with his family and two staff members. They arrive at John Wayne Airport, located five minutes from Free Chapel Orange County (OC), and by 6 p.m. Franklin is in the pulpit. The next day is filled with Orange County staff meetings, and the group returns to Gainesville on Tuesday. “This may sound like a crazy schedule, but it is actually exhilarating,” Franklin says. … “My family comes first, and what shows me that this is of God is the way they can be with me more now than ever,” Franklin says. “The school systems have actually worked it out that my children can be off the two days so they can be with me.”

Is this a biblical model of pastoring? Pastor means shepherd. How can he shepherd his flock if he has one pasture in Judah and one in Persia? He can’t. It is not a biblical model of shepherding. As for his family, is taking his children out of school for two days a week the best, most stable life for them? Is his ambition so great he plunks his children in the middle of his “crazy schedule” so he can enjoy the ‘exhilaration’? And a private jet??? He had a choice to stay in GA. He chose the jet set lifestyle. Is this the proper Christian pastoring and fathering model we want to buy into? It isn’t for me, and I refuse to spend money buying his book.

His friends tell us a lot about who Franklin is. This weekend he is preaching from the pulpit of false preacher Joel Osteen’s stage at Lakewood Church! (source here and here). There is no worse false church in America than Lakewood. There is no worse false preacher than Osteen! Osteen denies the Gospel in favor of becoming a motivational guru to have “your best life now”. The only way you’re having your best life now is if you’re going to hell. (that was John MacArthur’s wit). This Jentezen Franklin will be preaching from Osteen’s stage for two days. That should tell us a lot.

FALSE PASTOR ALERT.

If that is not enough, after this weekend Franklin will be hosting the “Praise the Lord” show with Jan and Paul Crouch on TBN. There is no deeper of a snake pit of false doctrine than Praise the Lord show on TBN and Franklin will be promoting it. (source)

Franklin should be excised from any bible-believing church on these bases ALONE.

But wait, there’s more.

As for his teachings, they are false doctrine too. He said in one sermon as he appealed for money, lots of it for over ten minutes, over sentimental music blared from loudspeakers, “I’ve never come to Hillsong Conference where I haven’t sown at least a $1000 seed…”

Yet the bible says, “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” Mt 6:2

and Franklin goes on, “$1000 seed…into this place, because if I sow now, the rain of now will fall on my life.” NAME IT CLAIM IT! Tithe big, you get big. And what is “the rain of now” for heaven’s sakes? His hands were fluttering down as rain, and the audience looked up as if expecting manna or Armani suits or money to fall from the sky right then.

He is a Word-Faith preacher and we know those are false. The Word-Faith crowd is big on “if you do this, you get this.” “If you do this it will cause God to move.” They talk about ‘releasing’ power into your life, but in fact the only thing we have the power to release is a fart after dinner. He elevates to us more power than we have and diminishes Jesus in the process.

“It is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of ministry,” he says. “It’s dangerous to have a growing ministry and a shrinking passion for God; something gets out of whack. When I find myself becoming mechanical in my preaching, even a one-day fast fine-tunes me and makes my heart sensitive. For me, fasting is the key.”

Fasting is not Jiffy Lube. It is the Word fine-tunes you. Sigh.

But most telling, is the following:

He said, “When I feel myself growing dry spiritually, when I don’t sense that cutting-edge anointing, or when I need a fresh encounter with God, fasting is the secret key that unlocks heaven’s door and slams shut the gates of hell. The discipline of fasting releases the anointing, the favor, and the blessing of God in the life of a Christian.”

Don’t gloss over this.

It is the most abhorrent statement imaginable. It is sacrilege. Jesus has the key to heaven and hell. Nothing we do unlocks it. How sacrilegious to say that any activity we do unlocks heaven or shuts hell. This is wrong! On just that statement, he should be booted from every bible-believing pulpit, our churches, and our bookshelves!

And why is fasting characterized as a “secret”? It is not, at least not to anyone who reads the bible. And what is a ‘cutting edge anointing’? Is it different from a regular anointing? Franklin distinguished the “normal seed” from the “precious seed” in one ‘name it claim it’ sermon I’d listened to. I guess I am missing out on the “cutting edge” anointing and I just have to settle for the regular anointing we get when we’re saved. (1 John 2:20).

See, that is the dangerous heresy in Word-Faith preachers like Franklin, they subtly elevate themselves and their teachings above what the bible says, making everything else seem humdrum by comparison by using sexy words like cutting edge, fine-tune, heart sensitive, breakthroughs, hundredfold return, precious seeds…. it is all very exciting in Franklin’s world, exhilarating, even. By comparison, the staid old faith, prayer, service, obedience seems dry as yesterday’s toast.

The Word-Faith doctrine “puts confidence in the nature of faith rather then in the object of faith. It assumes that there’s something inherent in believing that enacts [or “releases”] something when it isn’t true at all. It is not the nature of faith that is effective, it is the object of faith. It is my faith in God that gets results not my faith in my faith.” (source: A biblical answer to the prosperity Gospel)

Franklin Jentezen is a jet setting, TBN hosting, Osteen partnering Word-Faith prosperity preacher who has no business being in any biblical church. He is a wolf. Avoid Jentezen Franklin and The Daniel Fast. Rely on the Holy Spirit to direct your steps. Pray, fast when the Spirit prompts you, read your bible so you will have the discernment to spot a false teaching when you come across one. Go have a good lunch, and don’t forget to thank the Lord for it!

The God Business‬ was Very Very Good to Them – Because Nothing Says ‪‎Jesus Loves You‬ Better than ‪Money ‎Expensive Cars‬ Rape Incest and ‪‎Uber‬ ‪‎Fabulous‬ ‎Gay Sex‬ at ‪‎Church‬ –

Tustin, California –

Jan Crouch, co-founder of one of the world’s largest Christian broadcasting networks, died early Tuesday of a massive stroke at 78 – before a truce could be called in her family’s painfully public civil war.

Alongside her late husband, Paul, Crouch built Orange County-based Trinity Broadcasting Network from a vision Paul had while tooling down MacArthur Boulevard into a religious empire spanning the globe with nearly $1 billion in net assets.

Trinity’s religious programming – designed to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, and built on the “Have a need? Plant a seed” philosophy – can be seen throughout Europe, Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, Russia, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific islands, among many other locations.

Crouch’s death leaves the prosperity-gospel empire in the hands of her younger son, Matthew Crouch. Cut out of the picture almost entirely was her eldest son, Paul Crouch Jr., and his family. Members of the Crouch Jr. clan hadn’t seen Jan Crouch for years, and learned of her passing through news reports, family members said.

In a statement on Trinity Broadcasting’s web site, son Matthew and his wife Laurie said they “just watched the transition of our precious Mother from this world to the next; watched her step into the presence of Jesus and into her heavenly reward.

“Those who battled for the Kingdom of God knew her as a fighter — someone who didn’t give up, someone who fought relentlessly to get the Gospel around the world,” it continued. “ She has taken a piece of our hearts with her, but it’s so wonderful to know that Paul and Jan Crouch are together again, in the arms of Jesus.”

For those on Paul Crouch Jr.’s side of the family, the news was devastating.

“Today was a day I never thought would happen,” said Brandon Crouch, Paul Jr.’s son, on Instagram. “I can still hear her voice as she tells the heart-wrenching story. Grandma: ‘Brannie, what would you like for Christmas this year?’ Me: ‘For my grandma to live forever.’

“Your legacy will be in me forever… I love you grammie,” Brandon Crouch wrote. “Wish my son would have had a chance to meet you, and wish I could have seen you at least once in the last six years.”

Brandon Crouch and his sisters, Brittany Crouch Koper and Carra Crouch, hadn’t seen Jan Crouch because of the family’s brutal infighting. Both sisters are suing Trinity.

Brittany Crouch Koper has accused the mighty Christian broadcaster of playing fast and loose with the ministry’s millions, and provided internal documents to back up her claims.

Carra Crouch alleges that she was plied with alcohol and raped by a TBN employee in Atlanta when she was just 13 – and that her family covered up the incident rather than report it to authorities, to protect TBN’s reputation.

Trinity says it’s all untrue. It accused the Kopers of engaging in an inflammatory smear campaign to divert attention from their own financial sins against Trinity.

Trinity has filed a half-dozen suits against Brittany Crouch Koper and her husband Michael Koper, charging them with stealing some $1.3 million during their years of employ with Trinity, as well as a trove of privileged documents that they’ve inserted into the court record in “dribs and drabs” in an attempt to blackmail and destroy the network. The Kopers said they just want the ship of Trinity’s mission righted and set back on course.

On the rape allegation, Trinity has argued that many adults with a more direct line of authority over Carra Crouch apparently failed to take her to a doctor or to call police after the alleged incident. Those adults would be far more culpable than anyone at Trinity if, indeed, the facts she claims are true, an attorney for Trinity said at Carra Crouch’s deposition in 2014.

The ongoing legal battles with Trinity have bankrupted Brittany Koper Crouch, who went from beloved granddaughter to exiled accuser.

Brittany Koper Crouch and her grandmother grew very close when Brittany was in high school in Irvine. “She was every girl’s dream come true,” Koper told the Register in 2012. “She has a funny sense of humor – really different from what you see on TV. We’d talk about boys, gossip, get magazines and look through at the celebrities. It was a teenage-girl type of relationship. She’s the one who encouraged me to dye my hair blonde, wear blue contacts and go on a diet. When she lived in the mansion in Newport Beach, I’d go over and she’d do my make up and put her wigs on me. We’d go to movies together; she’d take me on shopping sprees for clothes, and when I went away to college, I was very homesick. She’s the first person I would call to talk to.”

After Brittany Koper Crouch made her accusations against Trinity, “it’s like I’m dead to them,” Koper Crouch said. Jan Crouch didn’t answer calls. On a recent Christmas day, Crouch Koper sent Jan Crouch a text that said, ‘Grandmom, I love you so much no matter what. Thank you so much for teaching me about Jesus.’”